The art market counts the logistical cost of the Red Sea conflict

Mar 11, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

The conflict in the Red Sea is adding delays to art shipping for entities in the Middle East and for clients sending works between Asia and Europe.

“The current issues in the Red Sea are having a significant impact on our art logistics operations in the region,” says Thomas Schneider, the chief executive officer of Hasenkamp, a German art shipper who handles much of the logistics in the Arabian Gulf. “We are therefore increasingly using air freight rather than sea freight to maintain our high standards for the safe and timely delivery of artworks.”

Since November, Houthi rebels based in Yemen have been targeting shipping vessels travelling through the 1,200-mile-long waterway, mostly at the southern end, where the ships pass through a narrow strait between Yemen and Eritrea. A Houthi missile attack killed three seafarers on the Greek-owned, Barbados-flagged ship True Confidence last week.

The Red Sea is the main route for cargo ships sailing from Asia and the Middle East to Europe, and it is estimated that 15% of the world’s cargo passes through the sea.

The Houthis have said that their attacks are in retaliation for the war in Gaza, though they are attacking ships owned or flagged by a variety of countries, in addition to that of Israel and its allies, the US and the UK. In January, the US and its allies began a series of strikes on Yemen in response to the Red Sea attacks.

While most art shipping is concentrated between the US and Western Europe, entities in Asia and the Middle East that use the Red Sea route have had to find alternative routes and methods.

Looking for alternative routes

“In response to the disruption in the Red Sea, we have taken precautionary action to temporarily divert all affected sea freight to an alternate route which avoids this area,” said a spokesperson for Christie’s, which operates a route between London and Hong Kong. “We continue to monitor the situation, working with our partners and clients.”

Shipping companies and clients were reluctant to discuss the subject, but sources confirm that a number of Middle East events have been affected, including the Diriyah Biennale, for which Hasenkamp was contracted. The second iteration of Saudi Arabia’s contemporary art biennial opened outside of Riyadh on 20 February. There were delays on freight that was already en route in the Red Sea, and the shipping method had to be changed from sea to air for a number of works, with budget ramifications.

A spokesperson for the biennial said that he was unable to comment on internal logistics.

There are no reports of any works that were destroyed or harmed in the Houthi explosions.Beyond the Middle East, the effect on US and European art travel is little—largely because sea freight continues to be an unpopular route for sending work.

“The reality of the trade is that most of the time you don’t have the luxury of time to ship by ocean,” says Fritz Dietl, the chief executive officer of Dietl, the largest fine-art shippers in the US. “Or [the work] doesn’t fit into an ocean container, or the value is too high, or the items are just too sensitive to expose them to the potential environmental conditions of an ocean trip.”

Art shipping has become a vexed subject recently as environmental groups have identified air freight as one of the art world’s largest sources of carbon emissions. Victoria Siddall, a trustee of the advocacy group Gallery Climate Coalition, says sea freight can entail up to 90% fewer emissions than air freight.

The conflict’s effect on consumer goods, however, is much higher—particularly because a second pressure point has emerged in the lake of the Panama Canal, where water levels are so low that fewer ships can pass through. The disruptions to two key global crossings mean ships must take much longer routes around continents, adding days to supply chains and driving up insurance and other costs.

However, shippers say that the current worries around shipping are still far from the price rise during the Covid-19 pandemic, which was brought on by the cancellation of air travel. Most commercial passenger flights also carry cargo in their holds. The grounding of this ancillary means of shipping meant that the cost of sea freight spiked almost overnight.

And while the art trade might be insulated from the threats to sea shipping, it is still at risk from the wider market slowdown, which is noticeably reducing the amount of works being transported—by sea or by air.

5 Artists To See at The Other Art Fair’s Los Angeles Edition This April

Mar 11, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

Cortney Herron, “Position No. 13” (2024), oil on canvas

Get your art fix at Saatchi Art’s The Other Art Fair, returning to Los Angeles from April 4 to 7. This edition promises an eclectic lineup of more than 140 independent, game-changing artists taking over the Barker Hanger in Santa Monica. Tickets are now available for an experience that promises to deliver the unpredictable.

This spring edition kicks off with some fresh additions, including outdoor sculpture installations by Misha Libertee and Ivan Butorac; “Perceive Me,” a nude sketch portrait experience by Kristine Schomaker aimed at promoting self-love and positive body image; and live performances during Opening Night and the sought-after Friday Late party.

As the weekend unfolds, the fair transforms into a buzzing hive of activity, attracting art aficionados and design mavens on the hunt for fresh inspiration. But it’s not just about serious collectors—casual browsers are also in for a treat, searching for those unique gems that scream individuality.

And foodies, you have not been forgotten! In the embrace of the city’s sunshine and just steps from the aisles of art will be food trucks serving up delights (Heritage Kitchen LA, Veggie Bomb, Vivace Pizza), espresso drinks, and a bar that just won’t quit. It’s a vibe that’s hooked Los Angeles thrill-seekers and art lovers from all walks of life, from the mildly curious to seasoned collectors.

Here are five artists to see in this upcoming edition:

In the vibrant tapestry of Los Angeles’ artistic landscape, figurative painter Cortney Herron weaves her creative narrative through acrylic and digital mediums. With a color palette that dances across her canvas and an interplay of organic lines and shapes, Herron finds delight in upholding an authentic artistic process. She champions the incremental layering of each brushstroke, inspired by textures found in nature.

Steven Rahbany, “Funeral Bouquet #2” (2023), mixed media: acrylic on soft (yarn, cotton, fabric)

Steven Rahbany specializes in the intricate craft of hand-sewn pillows. Using his graphic design background, he blends the art of typography with a tapestry of memories, weaving together strands of nostalgia and contemporary issues within the fabric of his one-of-a-kind creations.

Fujiko Rose, “Hidcote” (2021), ink on paper

Fine and decorative artist Fujiko Rose joyfully explores the intersection of nature and design. Recognized as the Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year in 2019, Rose’s artistic expressions, predominantly brought to life through monochrome ink, echo the timeless allure of antique intaglio prints cherished by her mother, alongside the vivid imagery that shaped her artistic journey from an early age.

Vanessa Valero, “Continent Sculpture” (2022), wood on soft (yarn, cotton, fabric)

Journeying through nature’s intricate tapestry, textile artisan Vanessa Valero engages in the meticulous craft of hand-tufting tapestries and embroidering drawings. She navigates vast landscapes, aiming to capture the grandeur of towering mountains and the delicate allure of minuscule particles.

Mallory Morrison, “Mystical” (2020), limited edition of 10 photographs, digital on paper

Committed to perfecting her craft by exploring novel techniques and ideas, Mallory Morrison immersed herself in the world of underwater photography. Having initially built her reputation in dance photography, her transition beneath the water’s surface enables her to harness the ethereal quality of weightlessness, weaving narratives that dive into the intricate realms of movement and composition.

See work by all these artists and more at The Other Art Fair’s Los Angeles edition, on view from April 4 to 7.

Grab your tickets for an unforgettable weekend at theotherartfair.com.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article 5 Artists To See at The Other Art Fair’s Los Angeles Edition This April appeared first on Colossal.

‘Focused on introducing newer artists in Indian art collection market’

Mar 10, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

The auction house is also proactively introducing new artists to its platform to provide more choices to the young collector, a senior official of the company said in an interview.

For instance, Sotheby’s has included a curated sculpture section in its auctions over the past few years, where sculptures are available for bidding at a variety of price points.

“In September 2020, we selected a sculpture as our London catalogue cover lot —a work by Pilloo Pochkhanawala. This work sold for just over $100,000, which was at the time the world auction record for the artist. The following year, our London office sold Atomic Couple (circa 1974), for $381,660 and since then we have seen very strong results for the sculptor at Indian auction houses, too,” said Manjari Sihare-Sutin, the company’s vice president and head of sale of modern and contemporary South Asian art.

She also said that during the pandemic, the company saw a steady shift to online sales and realised the strength of digital, interactive auction catalogues. However, while the engagement with its digital catalogues has continued, the tangible aspect of sales through exhibitions and live auction formats remains important still.

Currently, while the auction house continues to focus on its bi-annual auctions in New York and London, it does bring its travelling exhibitions to Mumbai and Delhi to incentivize Indian buyers to participate in the bids.

In its upcoming auction in March, it has up for sale four sculpture lots, with prices starting at $3,000 (low estimate) to as high as $120,000-180,000 (pre-sale estimate) for ‘Shiva’s Dance’ by sculptor Dhanraj Bhagat. “We have witnessed some record-breaking results over the past few years, with our auctions going from strength to strength. Sculptures are now very much in vogue too,” she said.

In more recent years, the auction house has also pivoted to introducing newer artists to auctions, including artists that have not featured at any international auction before. Some of these include Bashir Ahmad, T.K. Padmini, Youngo Verma and K.V. Haridasan.

Last March, Sotheby’s sold a work by Bangladeshi artist Aminul Islam for $33,020, against a pre-sale estimate of $7,000-9,000. At the same auction, a painting by Antonio da Cruz, one of Bombay’s most coveted portraitists in the 1930s and 1940s, sold for $22,860 against a pre-sale estimate of $4,000-6,000.

“While it is difficult to predict how such artists’ markets will evolve in the coming years, we feel it is important to continue introducing new artists into our auctions. These works start at a lower price point and represent an opportunity for younger clients who are starting to collect,” she added.

This strategy comes in the backdrop of a new class of buyers that is now buying across various price points, and also because progressive artists aren’t achievable to every single or new collector because they can be very expensive.

Indians generally tend to shy away from art, but the pandemic has spurred a lot of purchasing. So much so that works at auction have recently fetched prices like never before. A recent report by Knight Frank said super rich Indians are prioritizing art as an asset class after they’ve made investments in real estate.

The report said nearly 17% of India’s super-rich (those with a net worth of $30 million and above) bought coveted collectibles using their investable wealth in 2023.

Sihare-Sutin concurs. She’s observed that Gen Z and millennial Indian collectors under 40, professionals and family business owners who have entered the art market in recent years have moved up swiftly from purchasing art worth thousands of dollars to lakhs in a shorter period than their predecessors did. India’s bustling art fair scene has also encouraged many to dabble in the art market as well.

This month, in New York, the auction house will put up a single owner sale of collector couple Virginia and Ravi Akhoury and others — which had already travelled to India and back — including a Francis Newton Souza work from 1958 as well as works from Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar and Jehangir Sabavala. The Souza work is estimated to be between $300,000 and $500,000. The collection also features a Mabool Fida Husain work Untiled (Laxmi), which has a pre-sale estimate of $100,000-150,000.

In October last year, an untitled Manjit Bawa artwork depicting the Hindu deity Shiva fetched $2.3 million (about ₹20 crore), a record for the artist, at its last Modern & Contemporary South Asian Art auction in London.

Bawa’s work joined a heady list of artworks sold recently. In September 2023, an Amrita Sher-Gil painting titled ‘The Story Teller’ from 1937, fetched an eye popping ₹61.8 crore at an auction by SaffronArt, a record for any Indian artwork at auction. The same month, Pundole’s auction house in Mumbai sold a Sayed Haider Raza painting titled Gestation for ₹51.75 crore, including the buyer’s fee.

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‘Art Is Art’ Celebrates the Vast and Varied Creativity of Hundreds of Disabled Neurodiverse Artists

Mar 9, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

Miriam Munguia. All images courtesy of Chronicle Book, shared with permission

Spurred by the belief that art changes lives, Florence and Elias Katz founded Creativity Explored in 1983, a San Francisco-based nonprofit studio and gallery designed for disabled neurodivergent artists. More than 135 people currently participate in its programming, learning techniques across painting, drawing, clay, textiles, and more. They also sell and exhibit their works in museums, galleries, and art fairs worldwide.

A new book edited by Ann Kappes, Creativity Explored’s director of artist partnerships, celebrates the organization’s 40th anniversary and continued support of artists with a diverse range of abilities. Art Is Art: Collaborating with Neurodiverse Artists at Creativity Explored features hundreds of works organized by themes like “Dance Party!,” “I Speak Through My Art,” and “Blackiful.” While some chapters highlight single artists, others, like “Mail Art Club,” situate an ongoing group project within the broader realm of art history.

Originating in the 1960s with the Fluxus movement, mail art resurged during the pandemic, including with the artists of Creativity Explored. Teachers began connecting with their students via USPS and Zoom, sending each other letters and packages containing their artworks when they were unable to gather in the studio. This imaginative way of exchanging art and ideas continues now that artists are back together in person, and the Mail Art Club still meets regularly.

Another chapter is dedicated to Camille Holvoet, who’s been working with the organization since 2001, and creates mixed-media renderings of pills and syrups to remedy any issue. Titled “Medicine Helps,” the section presents several of her stylized, witty pharmaceuticals and their purposes, from “Anti-Worrying Pills about Anything” to “A Pill for Doing What I Am Supposed to Do.” Along with a description of her practice and thinking, Holvoet relatably adds, “Making art is the hardest part of art.”

Art Is Art is published by Chronicle Books and available from Bookshop.

a medusa like figure holds a bowl of white balls in her hand whiel her hair crawls in every direction

Yukari Sakura

a portrait of a man in a white toga-like outfit with an elaborate collar around his neck. he's seated in an ornate chair

Joseph Omolayole

a drawing of a wolf like animal covered in various motifs. a yellow form snakes around its neck and body

Christina Fong

A minimal rendering a five buildings in pastel hues

James Miles

Albert Duong

a ceramic bust of a lucha libre figure with three yellow stars on its head and a blue mask

Kevin Roach

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article ‘Art Is Art’ Celebrates the Vast and Varied Creativity of Hundreds of Disabled Neurodiverse Artists appeared first on Colossal.

The Gray Market: Anyone wrestling with money’s influence on art has 800 years of company

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

Since I first started writing about art and money almost 11 years ago, one lesson that people’s reactions have reinforced over and over again is that the tensions between the two forces tend to be thought of as relatively recent phenomena. In reality, the truth is that they are anything but. A brilliant exhibition at the Morgan Library and Museum in New York elucidates that people have been vexed by the tensions between visual art and the monetary economy for as long as the latter has existed.

Titled Medieval Money, Merchants and Morality (until 10 March), the show turns works of art, manuscripts and other objects into a prism to examine the economic revolution that took place in western Europe from the 13th to the 16th centuries—and vice versa. The unifying conceit is that money functioned as what Diane Wolfthal, a professor emerita of art history at Houston’s Rice University and the show’s guest curator, calls a “new medium” whose purpose, proper use and consequences were all being debated by people up and down the financial hierarchy, from Italy and England to the Low Countries, with art becoming a vital piece of the conversation.

I want to focus on three particular ways that works of art played into the metabolising of the new monetary economy during this period: as a visual record of the new developments, as an instruction manual about how to think through the tensions they raised and as an arena in which people and institutions wrestled with their own doubts about the morality of money.

Money matters

The Middle Ages and Renaissance saw multiple economic innovations that laid the groundwork for modern capitalism, starting with the production of low-value coins for everyday trade. Prior to this, the dominant mode of exchange was the bartering of goods or services—say, trading a chicken for three heads of cabbage—since “most stores of value were in people’s homes, land, textiles, furs, fish and other things”, says Deirdre Jackson, the assistant curator of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts at the Morgan.

But low-value coins also created several problems. For starters, they were all handmade, limiting their production while also meaning that, even in the best times, each coin was slightly irregular in form, size and weight. Worse, even the imperfect standards for these coins tended to erode based on the availability (or scarcity) of their raw materials. “In general most types of Medieval coins gradually declined in precious metal content over time—by being made lighter, by alloying the silver or gold with cheaper metals, or both,” the scholar Steven Yoon writes in the exhibition catalogue.

Despite being royally sanctioned, the minting of coins was also typically a for-profit business run at a local or regional level. This fact meant that dozens and dozens of currencies cropped up throughout the region now known as Europe. Italy, for instance, at various points gave rise to the Venetian torneselli, the Florentine florin and the Bolognese doppio ducato, among others. For trade networks to expand, the abundance of currencies necessitated currency exchanges. Operating them was only possible if people in one location were keeping close tabs on how the coin supply was changing elsewhere.

The Master of Catherine of Cleves, *St. Gregory the Great and Coins*, from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, around 1440.

Photography by Janny Chiu. Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

This new form of interconnection through money became so ever-present that it even infiltrated some religious texts. On view in the exhibition is St Gregory the Great and Coins, a page in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, an illuminated manuscript made in Utrecht around 1440. The central image depicts the titular saint in full regalia against a red-patterned background and gold-leaf chequered floor. But much more interesting is what borders the image and text: 25 representations of eight actual coins from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark that would have circulated through Utrecht in the early 15th century. (The one exception is the Danish penny, which appears six times on the right side of the page despite not being in wide use there, Wolfthal writes in the exhibition catalogue.)

The artist’s rendering of the coins is impressively illusionistic. The images largely replicate the iconography and text that adorned the front and back of the various coins, as well as their relative sizes and the colours of the metals they were made of. The irregularity caused by the coins’ handcrafting is also evident in their contours, making the page almost as much a historical document as a work of art.

There are multiple hypotheses about why the artist behind the manuscript paired St Gregory with the border of coins. Most revolve around his generosity to the poor (and his willingness to live simply to enable it). But one especially interesting theory is that, after being appointed pope in 590, the man who would become St Gregory established, in Wolfthal’s words, “a very effective administrative system of channelling donations to the Church to support the poor, especially refugees in Rome fleeing the violence of the Lombards”, who had seized much of Italy during his reign.

Regardless of the exact motivation, St Gregory the Great and Coins indicates that money and morality were already tied together in complex ways more than half a millennium ago. And that’s just one example of one interplay between these forces.

Beyond cash, beyond sin

Despite the rise of currency exchanges, carrying physical money from place to place was difficult and risky in the Middle Ages, and it only became more so as commerce incentivised people to travel greater and greater distances. Coins were heavy in large quantities, and thieves were plentiful. Not surprisingly, people were not thrilled by either the extra costs of hiring others to lug strongboxes full of metal and fight off brigands, or the strain and perils of doing both themselves.

These headaches catalysed financial innovations. Vital among them was the bill of exchange, a slip of paper written by a banker or a merchant in one place and time that guaranteed payment to the bearer elsewhere, later, in a different currency. Yoon calls the bill of exchange both “an adaptation to the extreme complexities of Medieval coinage systems” and “one of the harbingers of a new system of banks, credit, paper currency and virtual money that exists only as numbers in accounts”.

In other words, the bill of exchange initiated the ways we understand money today. But it also exacerbated the ways we agonise over it, too.

Consider the moral dilemma facing merchants and bankers, both of whom were able to achieve levels of wealth previously exclusive to royalty and the Church courtesy of the new monetary economy. Their chief spiritual problem was their perception as usurers. Initially defined as the practice of charging interest on a loan to members of your own faith, usury stemmed from the belief that making money “reproduce” on its own was unnatural—an idea that dated back to Aristotle. The only truly moral profits, in contrast, came from manual labour. “If you made money in any way through investment, you had tremendous guilt and were worried you were going to hell,” Wolfthal says.

The new financiers set out to counteract this problem partly through visual art, in more ways than one. First, they used their wealth to fund or donate religious works of art as a form of penance. Examples include the Paduan money-lender Enrico Scrovegni commissioning Giotto to paint the frescoes of the Arena Chapel, and the Florentine banker Cosimo de’ Medici paying for the frescoes made to adorn the San Marco religious complex in his hometown.

Jan Gossart, *Portrait of a Merchant*, around 1530

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

But bankers and merchants also tried to reshape perceptions of their professions through visual language, even on a personal scale. For instance, the Morgan exhibition includes Jan Gossart’s Portrait of a Merchant (around 1530), which goes to great lengths to portray its sitter as an honourable workingman rather than an idle (and thus immoral) plutocrat. It contains minimal visible signs of wealth; aside from the subject’s clothing and rings, there are only a few coins scattered on the desk—notably, to be weighed on the balance atop them as a part of his job.

Gossart’s subject appears to have only looked up momentarily from updating his ledger. Suspended behind him are two sheafs of work-related documents (the cover-page scripts read “miscellaneous drafts” and “miscellaneous letters”). His desk is blanketed by an array of unglamorous mercantile instruments and office necessities: an inkwell and blotter, tape, scissors, twine and a modest candle-holder. All of these elements feed into the notion that this merchant is genuinely labouring in a manner befitting the Church’s ideal. Basically, it’s all a way of communicating, “Hey, even though I work in this field you’re suspicious of, I’m a good guy!” In this sense, it functions as a kind of instruction manual for how to live as a part of the new financial class.

Works of art also served as more literal instruction manuals. Covetousness, a page from an illuminated version of the chivalric poem Le roman de la rose (the romance of the rose) made around 1350, anthropomorphises the sin as a woman grabbing money bags out of coffers stacked with gold objects and silver coins. The conceit of the poem’s opening section is that a man searching for his beloved must overcome a variety of moral failings along the way—many of them involving wealth. In addition to Covetousness, they include Avarice and Envy, with each depiction premised in one way or another on riches (or want of them). Together, the poem and its imagery, which proliferated across Europe during the Middle Ages, offered central lessons for people grappling with the ethical challenges of the new economy.

*Covetousness*, from Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun, *Le roman de la rose* (the romance of the rose), Paris, France, around 1350.

Photography by Janny Chiu. Courtesy of The Morgan Library & Museum

Reverse-engineering the faith

Crucially, none of the efforts by merchants and bankers to revise their images would have mattered had the Church itself not gone along with the revisionism. Fortunately for the financial class, however, there was too much opportunity for religious institutions to do anything else. “The main thing I saw changing over time is that the Church gradually acclimated to capitalism,” Wolfthal says of the period covered by the exhibition.

The Church “originally came down very hard on usury”, adds Wolfthal, who first came to this subject roughly 20 years ago while teaching a course on mercantile culture. She writes in the exhibition catalogue that the overarching belief during the Middle Ages and Renaissance was that there were only three “fruitful” uses of money: “meeting the needs of one’s family, the poor and the Christian community”.

But the last of these took a momentous turn as theologians gradually redefined the boundaries of morality vis-à-vis the economic revolution. Enter the purchase of indulgences, payments that the Church channelled into public works and, supposedly, neutralising the sins of the benefactor.

Indulgences were an invention as ingenious as they were disruptive to the faith. Spiritually, the exchange was simple: the more money a person gave, the more of their moral failings would be scrubbed away—and thus the better their odds of entering heaven would become. Practically, indulgences helped strengthen the Church’s influence by funding the construction of valued spaces such as hospitals, lepers’ sanctuaries and (of course) new and improved cathedrals during a time when the collection of secular taxes and corresponding civic maintenance and improvement projects were still nascent and rare.

Prior to the emergence of the monetary economy, indulgences were typically granted only in exchange for good works or military service in the Crusades. Afterward, however, their expansion into the economic system meant that salvation could be bought and sold, an audacious turn for a faith ostensibly premised on virtue’s supremacy over wealth and earthly power.

Indulgences also made the Church a key cog in the nascent international network of finance, as believers could purchase them in one place to support projects sited in another city or country hundreds of miles away. Jackson, for instance, mentions one indulgence scheme offered in London to help fund the construction of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Artist unknown (possibly The Master of St. Augustine), *St. Francis renouncing His Worldly Goods*, around 1500

Courtesy of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Purchased with the Henry P. McIlhenny Fund in memory of Frances P. McIlhenny, 2003

Although these changes were officially sanctioned, not everyone was comfortable with them. Multiple works in the Morgan exhibition embody the doubts some patrons and artists harboured about the Church’s embrace of capitalism. Take, for example, St Francis Renouncing His Worldly Goods, painted around 1500 by an unknown artist (possibly the Master of St Augustine, possibly in Antwerp). Although it tells the familiar story of the titular saint opting for poverty and God over his middle-class existence as the son of a textile merchant, the painting also seems to criticise the Church’s entanglement with money. In the centre of the canvas, we see Francis stripping off his fine clothes in front of a bishop dripped out in gold, jewels and opulent vestments. The bishop and his attendants look mortified by Francis’s choice; the bishop even has one gloved, ringed hand on Francis’s arm, as if imploring him to stop.

The imagery seems damning enough without further context. But it only becomes more so given that versions of this scene were not uncommon in everyday life by the turn of the 16th century in Europe. The reason is that the Church, which had earlier deemed usurers to be sinners, later declared it sinful for borrowers not to repay their debts. In fact, when lenders wanted their money back, they sometimes dragged debtors in front of ecclesiastical officials, who could seize the debtor’s goods—including the clothes off their backs—by the authority of the Church.

Medieval Money, Merchants and Morality brims with other works reflecting the contortions the monetary economy put the people of Europe through during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Along with the objects that track the emergence of capitalism in less complicated ways, they capture that art’s collision with money has been confronting humanity with questions about what is good and right for hundreds of years. That we as a species are still debating their proper relationship in the 2020s proves that there will never be broad agreement on where the boundaries should be—and that’s fine, as long as we don’t fool ourselves into believing otherwise. On this subject, even the Medieval Church wasn’t holier than thou.

Medieval Money, Merchants and Morality, until 10 March, Morgan Library and Museum, New York

A Major Retrospective Carves Space for Marisol’s Most Prescient and Under-Recognized Works

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

“The Fishman” (1973), wood, plaster, paint acrylic, and glass eyes, 68¼ x 28 x 33¼ inches. Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, © Estate of Marisol/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. All images courtesy of Toledo Museum of Art, shared with permission

Rising to fame in the 1960s, the Venezuelan-American artist Marisol was one of those rare figures who garnered both critical acclaim and celebrity “it girl” status. She was enigmatic, creating a varied and undeniably compelling oeuvre across mediums and concerns and forging bonds with art world fixtures like Andy Warhol. During the height of the artist’s career, she was famously interviewed by Gloria Steinem for Glamour, one of many mainstream magazines that featured her for her coveted style and mysterious allure.

Born María Sol Escobar in 1930s Paris, Marisol quickly adopted the singular nickname first used by her mother. She relocated with her father to Los Angeles as a teenager before moving to New York in the early 1950s, where she saw an exhibition of pre-Columbian clay pieces that prompted an evolution of her practice from painting to sculpture. Not long after, she began working with wood, the medium for which she’s most known today.

a group a figurative sculptures standing in a gallery

“The Party” (1965-1966), an assemblage of 15 freestanding, life-size figures and three wall panels, with painted wood and carved wood, mirrors, plastic, television set, clothes, shoes, glasses, and other accessories. Photo by Toledo Museum of Art

A major retrospective on view now at the Toledo Museum of Art explores Marisol’s under-appreciated legacy, presenting 244 sculptures, self-portraits, sketches, underwater films, photos, and more. Included are several of the artist’s abstract figures with their angular, boxy bodies and softer defining features like hands and faces.

“Mi Mama Y Yo,” for example, portrays a mother and child, their torsos defined as bright pink blocks. The furious, young girl grasps an ornate umbrella as she stands on a bench next to her smiling, disaffected parent. Similar concerns about loneliness, social structures, and fragmented lives frequently emerge in the artist’s works, which broadly explore relationships within oneself, humanity, and the natural world.

two figures wearing pink blocky garments. one stands on a bronze bench holding a yellow umbrella

“Mi Mama Y Yo” (1968), painted bronze and aluminum pole, 73 x 56 x 56 inches. Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, © Estate of Marisol/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

Even at the height of her fame, Marisol was reclusive and frequently retreated from the art world following a successful exhibition. She would, however, plant her own body and face into many of her works as a way to embed her presence wherever her works were on view. One of the most iconic examples is “The Party,” an assemblage of 15 figures who congregate in ball gowns and bear the artist’s likeness.

Mariosol’s popularity faded in the 1970s when she was arguably creating some of her most prescient works, including “The Fishman.” A life-sized sculpture standing taller than the artist, the hybrid figure with webbed feet holds a decapitated fish in its left hand. This surreal work is one of many that speaks to her anxieties about the climate and ecological devastation, concerns that are unavoidable today.

a wooden sculpture with a man's body and a fish head stands next to the artist

“Untitled (Marisol with her sculpture ‘The Fishman,’)” (1973), giclee print. Photo digitized by Amanda Smith, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

A 2021 exhibition chronicled the artist’s rise alongside Warhol, arguing that the pair influenced each other and that ultimately, Marisol deserves greater recognition as a leader of the American Pop art movement. But the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, which acquired the artist’s estate after she died in 2016 and organized the retrospective, makes an addendum to this corrective. “Although Marisol’s assemblage sculptures were often associated with the Pop art movement during its earliest years, works like ‘Baby Girl’ are distinct from the observations on mass media and mass culture put forward by friends and peers such as Andy Warhol,” a statement says.

Marisol: A Retrospective debuted last fall at the Montréal Museum of Fine Art and is on view in Toledo, Ohio, through June 2. The show will then travel to Buffalo AKG Art Museum and the Dallas Museum of Art. Find more about the artist’s work and legacy by picking up the exhibition catalog on Bookshop.

a wooden sculpture of a seated doll wearing a white outfit with a small figure standing on its leg

“Baby Girl” (1963), wood and mixed media, 74 x 35 x 47 inches. Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, © Estate of Marisol/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

a green fish sculpture with a human face

“Greenfish” (1970), wood, varnish, plastic, and plaster, 16 7/8 x 36 1/2 x 13 1/8 inches. Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

two blocky figures with human legs and hats ride wooden bikes

“Bicycle Race” (1962), wood and paint, graphite, cast plaster, cast metal, plastic, 66 1/2 x 56 inches. Image courtesy of Bill Jacobson Studio

a portrait ring is on the middle finger of a hand with long painted nails

“Self-Portrait Ring” (1967), gold and diamond, 1 3/16 x 1 3/16 inches. Image digitized by Amanda Smith, Buffalo AKG Art Museum

two wooden dog sculptures bookend a seated figure with a burned face

“Portrait of Georgia O’Keeffe with Dogs” (1977), graphite and oil on wood, 52⅝ x 53 x 60¾ inches. Photo by Brenda Bieger, Buffalo AKG Art Museum, © Estate of Marisol/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York

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Emma Bruschi’s Rye Sculptures Celebrate the Humble Elegance of Ancient Harvest Rituals

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

All images © Emma Bruschi, shared with permission

Rustic elegance meets agricultural ritual in Emma Bruschi’s rye sculptures. Utilizing a traditional long-handled scythe on her family’s farm in Haute-Savoie, Bruschi harvests straw that she weaves and knots into jewelry and “harvest bouquets,” small works that highlight the natural allure of the crop. Many of her designs accentuate the textures and shapes possible within the humble material as it splays outward in tufts and tightly interlaces in rows, evoking ancient symbols of fertility and timeless growth.

To simplify the process of separating a single piece of straw into smaller parts, Bruschi collaborated with the PEF workshop in Pantin to create a special tool that zips up the center of the shoot. “Transmission is also part of my job so that these ancient techniques can live on. However, straw-working tools are sometimes scarce or of poor quality. So it seemed logical to me to reproduce these ancient tools with today’s means,” she tells Colossal.

Bruschi plans to develop additional implements in the future and is currently working on a book to share more about her work and process. Head to Instagram to see the straw splitter in action, and find available bouquets and earrings in Bruschi’s shop.

Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $5 per month. The article Emma Bruschi’s Rye Sculptures Celebrate the Humble Elegance of Ancient Harvest Rituals appeared first on Colossal.

Could Madrid Be the Next Miami? At Arco Fair, ‘Slow-Burn’ Sales but Big Dreams

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

Arco Madrid, which is billed as the leading art fair in the Spanish-speaking world, has returned for its 43rd edition this week in Spain’s capital. Sales have been slow but steady during the first two professional days, on Wednesday and Thursday, according to exhibitors and industry insiders at the IFEMA Madrid, but that has not deterred some from proposing that the city could play an even more ambitious role in the international art market.

Could Madrid be the next Miami?

Judged by its scale and the number of accompanying VIP events, Arco Madrid is much more modest than Art Basel Miami Beach. However, with an increasing number of affluent Latin American collectors making the city their home here, thanks to an investor-visa scheme, it may not be an overstatement to compare the two. Some have reported choosing Madrid over Miami, and prices for its housing properties have been on the rise.

Arco Madrid 2025. Courtesy of ARCOmadrid.

To art dealers, Madrid certainly has its charm. For example, Jocelyn Wolff, of the eponymous Paris gallery, has cast his vote for the city and its flagship fair, skipping Miami fairs last year in favor of Arco.

“I did [Art Basel Miami Beach] almost 15 years in a row and I stopped because I felt it was totally overpriced,” said Wolff, who has brought to Arco material by a range of gallery artists from Latin America and Europe, such as Francisco Tropa from Lisbon. Works were priced between €9,500 and €180,000 ($10,400–$197,000).

Wolff reported some sales on opening day but admitted that they are not comparable to the ones might have early at other fairs. “It’s not really a selling fair,” he said. “It’s more like a contact fair. It’s a very specific spectrum [of clients], a good fair to work on this relationship between Europe and Latin America.” In Madrid, he has a higher chance of meeting collectors who have serious attitude about art than in Miami, and “it’s much more interesting to spend a week in Madrid,” he added.

Arco Madrid. Courtesy of ARCOmadrid.

Victoria Gelfand-Magalhaes, senior partner for Europe at Lévy Gorvy Dayan, said that a key reason that the gallery is participating is the increasing number of Latin American clients it has in Madrid from places like Venezuela, Brazil, and Colombia. The gallery has brought works by artists with connections to Latin America, such as the estate of Gego, the German-Venezuelan artist. “It’s a slow-burn fair, but people we have met here are more serious,” she said. “It’s not like Miami. It feels like there’s a Spanish Renaissance.”

This year, the fair has a total of 205 galleries from 36 countries, about the same as last year’s 211. More than 35 percent, or 73, of the exhibitors are Spanish, and 38 are from Latin America. A total of 171 galleries appear in the fair’s main sector, while a curated sector, “The shore, the tide, the current: an Oceanic Caribbean,” features 19 with ties to the Caribbean. An area for young international galleries has 15 participants, a section called “Never the Same: Latin American Art” has 12, and 28 artists are doing special “Artist Projects,” via by 32 galleries. (Some galleries are exhibiting in more than one sector.)

Maribel López, Arco’s director, said that a change in the dates of the fair in order to facilitate a longer installation period may have presented a problem for a small number of galleries, since TEFAF is also running this week in Maastricht, the Netherlands. However, Arco had 80 more applicants this year, and the fair had to turn down some of them in order to maintain its exhibitor number at around 200.

Arco Madrid. Courtesy of ARCOmadrid.

The fair has also tried to keep costs under control, in light of economic uncertainties, López noted. For the main section, the fee per square meter (about 10 square feet) was raised by €10 ($11) from last year to €330 ($361). Galleries under five years old pay €6,500 ($7,100) for a whole booth, and exhibitors wanting a backroom pay an extra €3,500 ($3,830).

One of the fair’s strengths is its VIP program, according to exhibitors. This year, the fair has invited 350 international VIPs, including private and institutional collectors, art advisors, and 160 curators. “It’s a program we started in the 1990s,” López said. “In fact, some of them are now living in Madrid. It is the new Miami,”

It was not hard to spot collectors and industry players enjoying themselves throughout a week of events, private dinners, and receptions hosted by several foreign embassies in Spain. The Brussels-based Alain Servais was seen mingling with art world professionals and cycling around the city at night. Ella Fontanals-Cisneros, the Cuban-born and Venezuela-raised philanthropist who has called Madrid home since she bought her first property here nearly two decades ago, invited insiders to take a peek at her private collection this week ahead of the launch of her autobiographical novel, Ella soy yo, this weekend.

Jaime Martinez, formerly the director of Bogotá’s Foro Space gallery, which exhibited at Arco last year, is now attending as the new head of the Artbo fair (International Art Fair of Bogotá) in the Colombian capital. “Arco plays a pivotal role in bridging the gap between the European and Latin American art markets,” Martinez said. “It serves as a crucial platform for showcasing contemporary art from both Europe and Latin America. And, well, Madrid is such a fun place to be.”

Arco Madrid. Courtesy of ARCOmadrid.

Buenos Aires pharmaceutical businessman Juan Vergez and his wife Patricia Pearson-Vergez also hosted private visits to their collection space in the city center. Their 26-year-old son, Francisco Vergez, who last year left his business-development job to pursue a career in artist management and art advising, is confident in the future of Arco. “The art market fluctuates, but Arco is on its way to grow,” he said. “There’s no coincidence that there were six dinners on Monday night. It’s like a small [Art] Basel.”

The mega Italian collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has an even bigger presence in Madrid than in the past. Her Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid has staged an elaborate, poetic exhibition, “When the Lambs Rise Up Against the Bird of Prey” by artist Precious Okoyomon, at the historic Montaña de los gatos in El Retiro Park. It is the artist’s first solo show in Spain, curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, the globetrotting artistic director of the Serpentine Galleries in London. Fondazione Arte CRT, the Turin-headquartered foundation that she serves as president, made its first acquisition at Arco, TBC, a painting by Tomás Saraceno and a set of 15 drawings by Abraham Gonzalez Pacheco for a total of €36,000 ($39,400). The works will go on long-term loan to the Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Torino.

The opening of Precious Okoyomon’s exhibition “Lambs Rise Up Against of the Bird of Prey,” presented by Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid, featuring an animatronic chimeric figure and a live performance. Photo ©Benedetta Mascalchi. Courtesy of Fundación Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid.

The price points at Arco are lower than at other top-tier fairs, with most works material priced under €100,000 ($109,500). Reported sales included a €95,000 ($104,000) mixed-media triptych featuring A.I. generated images titled Sunday Union by the Brussels- and Krakow-based Polish artist Marcin Dudek, sold by Brussels gallery Harlan Levey Projects to a U.S. private collection. The gallery also sold a few other small works priced around €3,000 ($3,300). Swiss gallery Livie, which takes the whole booth for the first time at the fair instead of sharing with another gallery, sold several works including landscape painting Baby pond by Dimitra Charamandas for €10,500 ($11,478).

On hand for the first time, 193 Gallery, of Paris and Venice, sold walled works by the artist Adler Guerrier in the region of €12,000 ($13,400). Berlin’s Capitain Petzel sold works priced between €5,000 to €250,000 ($5,500–$274,000). Bologna-based gallery P420 sold five paintings from its solo presentation of the Glasgow-based Welsh-born artist Merlin James priced at €10,000 to €30,000 ($10,931 to $32,795) to Spanish and international collectors. Madrid’s Guillermo De Osma, which has a €2.5 million ($2.7 million) Picasso painting on show, sold several figurative, surrealist paintings priced from €2,000 ($2,186) to €5,000 ($5,466) by Spanish artist Dis Berlin (b. 1959). His biggest collectors include the Oscar-winning Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, who has featured Berlin’s works in his films. The Picasso painting had yet to find a home as of Thursday afternoon.

Daniel Canogar, Abacus (2024). Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Anita Beckers.

Unlike many other prominent fairs, the range of work on offer extends well beyond paintings. There is no lack of conceptual, and even politically-charged works, from the Latin American world as well as Europe. Frankfurt’s Galerie Anita Beckers has brought German artist Jonas Englert back to Arco this year with the politically-charged video installation Circles I (€26,000/$28,425), which features archival footage of 20th-century world leaders shaking hands and giving other bodily touches. Also on show there is Abacus, by Spanish artist Daniel Canogar, a video installation that pulls real-time stock market data that it transforms into threads that are woven into a digital tapestry onscreen.

Vigil Gonzales (of Buenos Aires and Cusco, Perú) presents Puerto Rican artist Karlo Andrei Ibarra in the curated Caribbean sector. His photographic works series Mano brújula I, II, and III (2024, $3,500 each) addresses the limbo state of the island due to its fraught connection with the U.S. The gallery, which is participating in the fair for the first time, after taking part in Arco’s online edition during the pandemic, says it has nearly sold out its booth, where works range from €3,000 to €10,000 ($3,300–$10,900) in the fair’s Latin American sector.

“This is our gateway to Europe,” said Ari Gonzales-Vigil. “It’s a very friendly environment for Latin American galleries. This is a huge step for us and we feel cared for. The curators of our sector kept bringing people to us. This has given us huge incentive to come back next year.”

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After two years of tremendous growth, France’s art auction market is in decline

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

In its annual assessment of France’s auction market, the national regulatory body for the sector, the auction house Council, reported that overall auction sales climbed to a record €4.6bn last year, representing growth of more than 7% for the second year in a row. However, in sharp contrast, results for fine arts and collectibles have actually decreased, ending two years of strong post-Covid 19 recovery for those categories.

The figures show that the good results of the whole auction market are due to a massive 24.7% increase in the sales of second hand cars and industrial material, which have reached €2.5bn and represent more than half the total value of auction sales in France.

The fine arts are, however, struggling. Contemporary art sales fell by 4% (€248m), Old Masters and sculptures by 18% (€110m), Asian art by 19% (€103m) and books and manuscripts by 13%. For ancient furniture and art objects, a category hit by changing tastes and a number of forgery and trafficking scandals, the fall is even more dramatic, plummeting by 43% (€128m).

The council conducts yearly assessments of national activity, based on data collected directly from the 482 auction companies across France. It has only revealed the first results of its investigation and will refrain from commenting on the results until the completion of a more exhaustive study scheduled for this spring.

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Conversational commerce: The art of turning chats into sales

Mar 8, 2024 By Admin in Art World News

Conversational commerce: The art of turning chats into sales, Marketing & Advertising News, ET BrandEquity

Conversational commerce has gained popularity because it sits at the intersection of two booming areas of digital activity among consumers: mobile shopping and messaging (both text and voice).

According to most projections, conversational commerce is poised for significant growth. Gartner research estimates that in 2022, 70 per cent of customer interactions will involve emerging technologies, such as machine learning (ML) applications, chatbots, and mobile messaging (up from 15 per cent in 2018).

Sales made via conversational commerce channels like chatbots, digital voice assistants, and messaging will grow more than sevenfold from USD 41 billion in 2021 to USD 290 billion by 2025, according to Juniper Research.
In a panel discussion at ET CX+ Summit 2024, organised by ETBrandEquity.com, session chaired by Varun Markande, senior executive – content communities at ETBrandEquity engaged with panellists Mohit Singh, product lead – engineering, Ubona Technologies; Tanvi Jain, head – customer success at Sprinklr; Ashish Pawar, head of marketing, Tata Mutual Fund; Jyoti Arora, head – customer experience, Borosil; Abhay Tandon, digital innovation and partnerships officer, TVS Motor Company and Kinjal Shah, head – digital business, analytics and marketing, Kotak Mutual Fund to understand the trend shift in consumer preferences and turning chats into sales.

Sprinklr’s Jain remarked, “People shouldn’t have to worry about where they started the conversation, who they started with, they have to worry about the outcome. How do they get their problem resolved and that is what we do.”

Ubona Technologies’ Singh spoke about the framework of omnichannel strategy to engage with the customer. “Voice is still a very important conversational channel for India primarily because of two reasons, one is larger demography is included in this. Second is the immense linguistic diversity of our country where the voice channels make it very convenient for the customer across India,” he added.

There are some limitations to certain aspects of conversational commerce, however.
Singh highlighted the importance of intelligently using different channels at different stages of the sales.

From a customer’s point of view, investing is supposed to be boring but Shah from Kotak Mutual Funds shared the opportunities and challenges that eliminates the friction for the customers to get their hands on, easily.

“When we look at conversation commerce, it has started with awareness as a category. It is still at a very high level of awareness and consideration. Conversations are happening maybe to an extent when it is about investments,” Shah added.

Shah stated, “The challenges in terms of having an end to end journey for conversions on conversation right now, it’s still far fledged when it comes to investment.”

Tata Mutual Funds’ Pawar added to the same stating, “There are a lot of regulatory guidelines which allow us to do certain things and not do certain things. While getting transactions, the first thing we should listen to is we need to make sure that we need to try to solve the customer’s problem.”
Presently, the regulatory landscape is evolving and the marketers’ are betting on the platform thinking that it might be an opportunity to bring in the conversions to customers to enable commerce on the platform.

Borosil’s Arora mentioned the reason to use WhatsApp as their conversational channel, which is a direct channel.

She stated, “A lot of customers were primarily homemakers. We also have a lot of customers from tier two and tier three cities wherein some part of a sales is online, but primarily it’s all offline. Getting data from these customers and being able to push that communication. WhatsApp is the easiest channel because everybody uses WhatsApp and understands it.”

Arora highlighted the challenge in gathering customer data. She said, “For communicating with the customer, you also need a lot of customer data. We sell a lot of lines through the Amazon and Flipkarts of the world. Gathering the customer data is a challenge.”

The journey if it can be completed enough to clicks then WhatsApp becomes a key channel to drive conversational commerce.

Traditionally, there was a human agent to bring a nuance and carry the customer to the end of the journey. Now, with AI and GenAI that part of the journey and its complexity have been shifted at some level.

Jain stated, “With AI, we can visualise a world where everything is personalised but that is the middle of the journey. It is all about understanding the intent and then engaging with it depending on the context.”

“Intent detections at scale and even closing a conversation, it’s all possible through AI,” she added.

TVS Motor Company’s Tandon shared how organisations have a process of persistent memories of a customer. “WhatsApp is just one channel and for driving the sales you need to have multiple channels in the game,” he added.
Tandon further added, “With the intelligence that we have developed over the years [we have based on that. We create a journey. We try to reach out to the customer with the appropriate channel. And for some cases it could just be a single channel, but in majority of cases, it’s generally two or more channels and we ensure that the data is synced across the channel so that the customer has the same experience across channels and not all the channels are running in silos.”

Arora shared that these incidents are one of the challenges every industry faces. There’s also an out calling or outreach that is planned,” she added.

Arora said, “We will let it rest for a while because that data will keep churning. If it’s not happen today, it’ll happen tomorrow. So maybe one week down the line, there’ll be another match. We definitely try not to bombard the customers’ channel.”

CX+ Summit 2024: CEOs dwell on CX as a pillar of growth

Customer experience has emerged as a key differentiator for brands in every industry. Today, brands are focused on engaging their customers for a lifetime, making them more resilient to competition and economic headwinds. At the ET CX+ Summit 2024, Puneet Gupt, COO of Times Internet, engaged business leaders to explore how CX is driving their business forward.

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Conversational commerce, also known as chat commerce or conversational marketing, represents a way for online retailers to unleash the potential of conversation to sell their products and services. A recent survey has found over 80 per cent of customers are willing to pay more to get a better experience, suggesting that in the modern world of commerce, it is not always the products or prices that have the most significant impact on conversion but the positive customer experience a brand delivers.

Updated On Mar 8, 2024 at 01:00 PM IST